Vacation Robo-Post: Your Judgment on the Judges

We’ve finished Hollywood Week on American Idol and, by the time you read this, Vegas Week. This means we’re approaching the live performances, when the contestants start getting winnowed down but, more important, we begin to see how the new judging panel interacts with the contestants, and each other, live and off the cuff.

I’ve said before that I don’t think we can really assess the judges until we see them live, without benefit of editing, and I’ve only been watching the audition rounds intermittently. (Only so many hours in a day, only so many years in a life.) So far, though, I’ve been decently impressed with the new panel’s camaraderie and willingness to take the job seriously and be critical. Of the three, though, only Steven Tyler has been especially interesting in himself, in the what-will-he-say-next way that Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul were.

Beyond that, the best thing I can say about the judges—and maybe this is the best thing they’d want said about them—is that they’re not getting in the way. What’s your judgment so far?